Shanty

What it means

A shanty is a work song of sailors on the large merchant sailing ships; its heyday was the nineteenth century. It served to give rhythm to shared work processes — hoisting sails, turning the capstan, pumping. Characteristic is the call-and-response form: a lead singer, the shantyman, sings the lines, the crew answers with a constant refrain, and precisely on this call falls the shared pull or push. The origin of the word is not certain; it is usually derived from the French chanter (to sing).

Musical use

The kind of work determines rhythm and tempo, and the types are distinguished accordingly. Halyard shanties accompanied the long, staged hoisting of the sails, usually with two pulls per refrain; short-drag shanties served brief, forceful pulls, for instance when trimming the sheets, with one pull per refrain. Capstan shanties belonged to the steady circular work at the capstan, for instance when weighing anchor, and often have longer verses and broad refrains. Pump shanties accompanied the monotonous work of pumping out the hull.

Musically, shanties are plainly built: short melodies of limited range, clear organization, much repetition. This is no limitation but a precondition, for they were sung under physical exertion and without music. The shantyman improvised the verses from stock lines and formulas and so adapted the song to the length of the task; it is above all the refrain that is fixed. With the switch to steamships and machinery towards the end of the nineteenth century, the genre lost its function. It has since lived on as repertoire for choirs and in folk music, where it was revived from the mid-twentieth century; Stan Hugill's collection Shanties from the Seven Seas (1961) is regarded as the standard work. There, however, the shanty is a concert form that has only an indirect connection to the original work function.

Performance practice

Keep the tempo firm and even; a shanty lives from the pull, not from rubato. Cast the lead singer distinctly and let them really lead, with free shaping of the text, while the group holds the refrain stable. Sing forcefully but without pressing, and watch for clear pronunciation, because the text narrates. Choose a key that lies comfortably for everyone, since it is usually sung unaccompanied. Avoid exaggerated ornaments — the effect arises from simplicity and shared force.

Ask of every song which task it belonged to: a halyard shanty with its two pulls per refrain calls for different accents than a smoothly flowing capstan shanty. Taking this into account lets you find tempo and stress more precisely than singing all songs the same way.